After two years of writing in residence at Duceppe and a fruitful laboratory with actresses from the Maghreb and the Middle East, Nathalie Doummar is about to unveil mom, the piece she has dreamed of since her years of study at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. “Ten years ago, these women lived in me,” explains the author and actress of Egyptian descent. They are the ones who raised me, it is with them that I grew up. I was burning to tell their stories, but I didn’t have the necessary experience, I didn’t feel able to do them justice. So I naturally went to a group of women of my generation, those I represented in coconut. »
After coconutcreated at La Licorne in 2016, the author signed Love is a dumplingin tandem with Mathieu Quesnel, and then Sisiand finally The wolf, a one-on-one that Maude Guérin and Luc Senay will play five times at Duceppe next October before hitting the road to visit several venues in the province. Since 2018, Doummar has also successfully ventured into web series with Teodore no H.
When David Laurin and Jean-Simon Traversy, Duceppe’s co-artistic directors, gave the author carte blanche, they unknowingly gave her permission to start writing mom, but also to truly delve into its Egyptian roots, to fully embrace them. “I realize the privilege that this represents,” she explains. It is a grace to be able to bring together on stage these sisters, mothers, daughters and cousins of women who are strongly inspired by those in my family — even if I often tell them the opposite, to reassure them — but from whom certain traits also come extraordinary actresses who embody them. »
A love story
The action of mom takes place in the master bedroom of a suburban bungalow where twelve women take turns at the bedside of the dying patriarch. “It’s a situation that I experienced, explains Doummar. The dying grandfather. His daughters, his granddaughters and his sister-in-law who work despite hunger, thirst and fatigue. From there, I invented a lot, but I found that this camera was ideal for exposing the complex relationships that unite these women. There are issues of generation, cultural background and religion. There is violence, anger, intransigence, but also a lot of benevolence. »
The clan of women depicted by Doummar strongly evokes that immortalized by Michel Tremblay in The sisters-in-law. In both cases, the intimate leads straight to the universal. “In substance as well as in form, it’s a comparison with which I live very well,” explains the author. Tremblay’s writing grounded me, that’s undeniable. These women of the 1960s whose voices intertwine and overlap, these women of various generations who insult each other while loving each other awkwardly, they are not so different from those who appear in my play. As Marie-Ève Milot, the director of the show, puts it so well, the violence that these women have suffered from men, they transmit it to each other, they reproduce it, but they also make sure to treat each other. others. mom, it’s a great love story: I’m deeply in love with my family! This is my tribute to these resilient women, always in survival mode, constantly concerned with doing well. »
A laugh that frees
While embracing drama, even tragedy — she does not hesitate to claim Bernarda’s house Alba by Federico García Lorca — the author makes a point of specifying that, in spite of what one could believe, her text is often very funny: “In rehearsal, we have great moments of laughter, outbursts that do a lot of good. It was important to me that there was this humor in the play. These women have temperament, repartee, an undeniable vivacity of spirit. When two worlds collide, two cultures, two generations, it frequently triggers laughter. I consider that I have one foot on each side. Between my mother’s generation and that of my young cousins, let’s say that there is a clear gap in mentalities. »
In rehearsal, we have great moments of laughter, bursts that do a lot of good. It was important to me that there was this humor in the play. These women have temperament, repartee, an undeniable vivacity of spirit. When two worlds collide, two cultures, two generations, it frequently triggers laughter.
In her play, Nathalie Doummar embodies the role of Diane (alternating with Sharon Ibgui), a woman whose story is largely inspired by hers: “She cohabits with a man before marriage, divorce from the father of her two children, then dates a woman, which causes a great scandal. Unwittingly, she makes her parents and aunts suffer. What she’s carrying on her shoulders, let’s call it the weight of disapproval, I have a good idea what that is. »
Doummar explains that recriminations are rarely formulated directly, but that they always end up reaching the ears of the person concerned, by detours: “The most mined territory, the one where the precepts of the Catholic religion still have a lot of influence is undoubtedly that of marriage and motherhood. To question that is to run the risk of bitter disappointment. »
Knowing that her whole family will attend the show, which is also the same evening, creates in the author and actress an undisguised apprehension. “I have the dog, I admit it, I fear the reception of my family, but I have good hope that the women of my clan will understand that there is a lot of love in the gesture that I pose. I’m not trying to pit the bad guys against the good guys. I explain where these women come from, what built them. I’m not here to blame anyone, just pay homage and thank them for what they’ve given me. »
First time
A few days away from going on stage alongside these actresses who will all be treading the boards of the Jean-Duceppe theater for the first time — Karina Aktouf, Lamia Benhacine, Nicole Doummar, Sharon Ibgui, Ambre Jabrane, Aïda Nader, Wiam Mokhtari, Mireille Naggar, Natalie Tannous, Mireille Tawfik, Leila Thibeault Louchem and Elisabeth Sirois — Doummar does not hide his feverishness.
“I was emotional at several points in the process,” she says. I was overwhelmed when I realized that native Quebec comedians felt like this every time they rehearsed: the relief of not having to apologize for coming from somewhere else, of not having to constantly adapt. There is a familiarity between us, a sisterhood, a communion that I look forward to delivering on stage. »